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In a new episode of Nightdive’s Deep Dive podcast, host Locke Vincent, producer Daniel Grayshon, and studio head Stephen Kick got into some of the more granular details of Thief: The Dark Project Remastered, including that they brought on an original Looking Glass artist, Daniel Thron, to help revamp Thief’s cutscenes.
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“We have one of the original artists back who did work on the original game,” said Grayshon. “When you look at the cutscenes [in the 1998 release], they’re in a very low resolution, have a limited frame rate. But now, we have the original artist back, and he’s really helping us nail down that look.
“It looks the same, but 4K—so much better. The animation is smoother. I don’t think there would be anybody—and I’m making a bold prediction saying this—I don’t think anybody would be unhappy with what we’re doing.”
I reached out to Vincent via email, and he confirmed that Grayshon was specifically referring to former Looking Glass developer Daniel Thron. In addition to directing, animating, and producing art for Thief’s cutscenes, Thron was one of three primary artists credited on Thief alongside Robb Waters and lead artist Mark Lizotte.
Thron also voiced a number of characters throughout the game. Devs pulling double duty on VO was a thrifty practice of Looking Glass’ that I’ve always found charming, Thron in particular did great work, and it also lead to iconic performances by writer/designer Terri Brosius (Viktoria, Shodan).
So it sounds like the cutscenes are in good hands. Thief has a deliciously ’90s intro movie and full cutscenes at a few key story beats, all in this very distinctive, 2D-animated style. I’ve never seen anything else quite like it.
In addition to fully animated cutscenes, there are Thief’s essential mission briefings narrated by Garrett himself, the inimitable Stephen Russell. The parchment illustration motion graphics of these sequences could also use some love from Thron and the team.
The cutscenes and briefings all helped contribute to Thief’s one of a kind atmosphere, but have been stuck at primeval resolutions since 1998. Thief itself ran at 480p, but one cutscene upscaling mod on the Thief Nexus cites the cutscenes as running all the way down at 320×240 and 15 fps.
I’m elated to hear of Thron’s involvement, but I was never really worried about the cutscenes in the first place. Nightdive already showed its command of the Dark Engine and Looking Glass’ visual style in the System Shock 2 remaster.
What’s more, that remaster did a phenomenal job of recreating Shock 2’s own pre-rendered cutscenes in a “the same, but better” manner, as Grayshon put it. Retired Nightdive VP Larry Kuperman informed me that this was also done without the use of AI upscaling.
Thief: The Dark Project Remastered might be my most anticipated game of the coming months: It currently has a release window of “this winter,” which I’m hoping lands more toward the “this December” end of things rather than “next February.”
